Sophia lay with her eyes open, staring into the darkness, as her heart pounded. The blackness of the room pressed in on her, every noise causing her eyes to jerk in its direction.

She hadn't been in this kind of darkness or silence since the subway tunnels. In the hospital, nurses were always in and out, light coming in from the hallway or various screens and monitors. But the Four Seasons's blackout curtains were doing their job too well, the soundproofing in their walls far too effective and keeping the space dead quiet.

Sophia gripped her sheets, twisting them around, trying to keep herself from falling apart. She could do this. She could bring her heart rate down, even out her breathing. She had to do this.

Gasping for air, Sophia jerked up from the bed and smacked the light switch next to the bed, flooding the room with light.

She couldn't do this.

She couldn't look at Dean, either. He had clearly still been awake, and he slowly sat up, his ever-neutrally sympathetic gaze on her as she tried to control herself.

Sophia swung her legs over the edge of the bed, leaning over on her knees as she slowly came away from the edge of panic. "It was so dark down there," she said, the words refusing to stay contained within her anymore.

Slowly, Dean got up and came and sat next to her. He didn't touch her, didn't say anything, but that was his invitation for her to continue.

"I couldn't see anything; I thought every little noise was him coming back to kill me." Sophia took in a sobbing gasp. "I felt so alone. I thought I was going to die."

Dean twitched beside her, and then he folded her into his arms for the first time since they reunited, his chin resting on her head as she pressed her face into his chest. He probably wouldn't have done it in any other circumstance, he had been so careful with how he interacted with her. But whether he liked it or not, he knew her, just as she still knew him. And she needed him right now, needed that comfort.

"How am I supposed to do this, Dean?" Sophia asked, her voice watery and close to breaking. "I can't even sleep."

"You're going to be okay," Dean calmed her, smoothing out her hair with his hand. "It's going to take time, but you're going to be okay."

She didn't have to ask for him to shift the two of them around so Sophia could lie down against him. Instead of the sheets, she curled her fingers into his shirt, her head lying against his chest so she could feel his warmth and listen to his heartbeat drumming steadily.

"I'm going to turn off the light, Sophia," Dean whispered to her. "You're okay. You're not alone. Not anymore."

He plunged them into darkness, and Sophia held onto his words like a lifeline. She wasn't alone. She didn't know where they stood, exactly, but Dean was here with her. She was in his arms, listening to the steady beat of his heart, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. He blocked out all the horror and only brought in feelings of comfort.

The darkness no longer felt oppressive. Instead, it reminded her of Dean's eyes.

It wasn't the best sleep Sophia had ever had, but Dean staying with her allowed her to at least get some sleep. And after everything, that was the best start she could hope for.

***

Sophia's eyes opened to darkness, and in a moment, the panic began to grip her heart again. She tried to move, but even though nothing appeared to be holding her down, she couldn't. Her arms and legs refused to respond, and even her head seemed to be stuck in place. She cast her eyes wildly around, trying to find any sign of where she was, but nothing. There was only darkness.

She was trapped. Oh, God, she was trapped. How could she get out if she didn't even know where she was or what was holding? The more she tried to struggle, the tighter the hold that was on her.

And where was Dean? God, where was Dean? She called out to him, but her voice was lost in the dark void that she was falling through. It didn't matter how loud she yelled, nothing came out.

"Sophia! Sophia!"

Sophia jerked awake, already sobbing, disoriented and shaking. Her fingers gripped into Dean's shirt and she couldn't bear to face him.

Once she got some of her bearings back, Sophia glanced at the clock. It was just past two in the morning.

"Sophia," Dean said again, more gently this time, and she finally allowed herself to look at him.

But she couldn't say anything. She was so exhausted, so emotionally spent, that nothing would come out.

Dean seemed to know it, too. He didn't ask her to speak, didn't ask any questions. Instead, he let her calm down on her own, not even questioning the grip she maintained on his shirt.

Finally, Sophia sank back down into the bed. As much as she never wanted to sleep again, her brain was telling her otherwise, the fuzzy pressure of sleep already threatening to take over.

Dean flipped the lights again and lay down behind her. His arms cocooned around her, pulling her to him. He didn't kiss her neck like he used to, but he did curve his body around hers, his size making it so she could curl up into him and feel as if she was completely protected from the outside world.

It's the only thing that made sleep possible, again.

***

The curtains were slightly open when Sophia's eyes blinked open again, letting sunlight stream into the room. She hadn't had any more nightmares, and for the first time in weeks, actually felt somewhat rested.

She pushed herself up, frowning at the emptiness of the bed. Dean was gone.

As if he could read her mind, he came out of the bathroom at that moment, immediately turning toward her once he saw she was awake.

"What time is it?" Sophia croaked out.

"Just past eleven," Dean told her. "You were out for a while."

Sophia pushed herself farther up so she could lean back into the pillows, wincing slightly at the stiffness in her side.

"You okay?" Dean immediately asked.

"Define okay."

He pursed his lips and didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry about last night."

The words didn't sit well with him, Sophia could tell. And whether or not the apology was warranted, she still felt the need to say them. Anything to acknowledge that what was going on between them wasn't normal.

"I'd tell you there's nothing to apologize for, but something tells me you wouldn't agree with me."

She gave a small shrug. "I just, this is a lot," she said. "And I don't like putting so much of a burden on you, especially since you've already done so much for me over the past weeks."

"It's not a burden. You could never be a burden."

Sophia let out a cynical laugh at that. "Sometimes I feel like I'm nothing but a burden," she said, her voice trailing off at the end. "I just, I don't want you to feel obligated to do all this to me, or have some weird idea that you owe me or something. Because you don't."

A crack in Dean's mask. "Obligation?" he repeated in disbelief. "Out of debt? Jesus Christ, Sophia, I'm here because I want to be here. I'm doing all of this for you because I want to do this."

"Why?" The word came out angrier than she had intended. "Why, Dean? What reason could you possibly have to want to do all of this, to put yourself through all of this?"

"Why?" He shook his head. "God, you really don't see it, do you?"

"What am I supposed to see?" Couldn't he just give a straight answer, for once? She just wanted him to tell her why he was there. "For fucks sake, we're broken up, Dean!"

She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth. He took a step back, flinching as though she had physically struck him. "I know," he said, his voice low and tightly controlled. "I know, Sophia. You think I don't? You think I somehow forgot?"

"I'm sorry," she said, hanging her head. They could both agree that this apology was warranted. "I didn't mean to...I don't know what I meant. I just need to know why you're here. I know it's for me, but I can't read your mind, Dean."

The looked he gave her pierced right through Sophia's soul. Then he moved toward her, sitting across from her on his relatively unslept bed.

"It's been months," he said. "I know that. It's been months since we've talked. And my heart's been shattered for those months, without any progress of being rebuilt. But don't you dare think, that even though we're broken up and I haven't seen you in so long, haven't even heard from you, that I don't love you anymore, Sophia. I'm never going to stop. Maybe you don't believe it, but it's true. And I know that you breaking up with me has to do with what's been going on in the past months, I understand that. But I don't know how much of the breakup had to do with that, or if other things were going on, as well. So me bearing myself to you like this? I know that I'm giving you the power to stomp over the already annihilated pieces of my heart, but I don't care. That's how much I love you."

Sophia stared at him with an open mouth, tears already streaming down her face. There was so much to process with what he just said. How much she had hurt him, how these months had been excruciating for him. How there was still doubt in his mind that she broke up with him because she wanted to, not because she had to. And yet, he still loved her."

"Why didn't you say anything before?" Sophia whispered. "At the hospital?"

"I couldn't." He shook his head. "I had no idea how you felt about me, if you would even want me there. It didn't seem fair to put pressure on you to think about our relationship when you had been through so much. It just seemed so trivial in the face of everything else."

Another sob went through Sophia's body. "'Trivial?'" she echoed. She took a shaky breath. "Never, ever call what we had, or have, I don't know, 'trivial.' Because that's utter bullshit, Dean."

For the first time, a flicker of hope sparked on his face, but he quickly extinguished it. Sophia knew exactly how that felt, the fear that hope would only serve to make the already excruciating disappointment all the more painful.

"I broke up with you because of Graham and everything that was going on with him." If nothing else, Sophia was going to set that record straight. "Maybe not telling you about what was going on was the right decision, maybe it was the wrong one, but breaking up with you? It killed me. Everything I have ever told you about how I felt about you, everything before that day, was true. Every single thing.

"I've thought about you every single day since then. There have been times that I haven't even been able to function because I've missed you so much. I didn't even allow myself to hope that I would see you again, because even if I survived this, I figured you wouldn't want anything to do with me. But that didn't stop me from loving you. Ever."

With that confession out in the open, Sophia was almost more confused as to where they were going to go from there. They both loved each other. But would that be enough?

"Then, doesn't that mean we can work this out?" Dean was crying too, but the hope in his eyes only grew.

Sophia swallowed hard. "There's a lot I want to tell you. A lot I need to tell you if this is ever going to work. But, I'm not ready, Dean. I, I just can't."

As though he couldn't bear to be away from her any longer, Dean crossed over to her bed and lightly brushed his fingers across her cheek, tucking hair out of her face. "I don't expect you to be ready," he told her gently. "I don't need to know everything right now. I just need to know that you're willing, that you want to work on this with me. Work on us."

Sophia burst into sobs. "I never thought there would be an 'us' again."

Dean wrapped his arms around her. "I know. I didn't either," he admitted quietly.

Sophia drew back from his embrace, still not ready to allow herself to go back to leaning on him as though their relationship had never broken. "Can I, can I ask you something?" she asked hesitantly.

"Anything."

She took a breath. "What happened? What was your perspective on everything? And what happened after I left?"

He frowned. "I didn't know the whole story, Sophia."

"Doesn't matter," she said. "I want to know. I want to know what's been happening with you these past months." She placed her hand on his chest, feeling the steady heartbeat of the heart she had utterly destroyed beneath her palm. "If we have any chance, we have to be completely honest with each other, Dean."

"I don't want to make you feel bad."

"You won't. Like you said, you didn't know everything. And that was my fault."

He studied her for a moment but then nodded. "Then, I'll tell you everything."